She had no idea just how bad things were about to get.
Jim dismounted and tied his horse off to a fence post. It would have enough room to graze but he wanted to keep it saddled in case he needed to leave in a hurry. Gary and Debra did the same, tying their horse off a couple of posts away from Jim's.
Jim faced his parents, his wife, and his daughter. "I followed them into town because I had a bad feeling, but it's way worse than I thought."
Ellen had her arms folded over her chest, literally holding herself together. "Were they attacked at the market? Over that rumor about the power plant?"
“They were attacked in the market but I don’t think it was over the rumor. I think it was over the fact they had horses and no one else did. But then there’s this.” Jim dug into his shirt pocket and removed the flyer he'd taken off the dead man, handing it to his wife. "It's worse than any rumor."
Ellen’s panic meter pegged out as she read the flyer. She waved it in front of her face. “What the hell is this?”
Pops reached for the flyer. "Can I see that?"
Ellen shoved it toward Pops without taking her eyes off Jim. They were pleading and imploring. Demanding. "What is that?" she repeated slowly.
"I’ve got no idea. I’m nearly certain that picture is from a security camera at the power plant. There was a point where I was nearly hypothermic and had to ditch my clothes. I took shelter in some kind of control room to warm up.”
Pops was shaking his head in disbelief as he read the flyer. His reaction wasn't panic but disgust. He’d had enough of violence and the worry that came along with it. He was tired of seeing his community like this.
"So is this from the government? Did they hand those out? Is the government after you now?" Ellen asked. “Because if it’s the government we’re fighting now we don’t have a chance.”
Jim shook his head quickly, trying to cap the well of surging fear. "Those guys we intercepted back in the winter, Scott and his crew, the ones walking the power lines. They talked like the government was pretty fragmented right now. Like there wasn’t any single unified government making unanimous decisions and acting as a whole. This could be any one of a number of fringe elements. Hell, it may not even be anyone in the government at all. It could just be somebody local trying to stir all those rumors up into something more serious."
"I doubt the locals have access to working copy machines and that quantity of high-tech waterproof paper. They sure wouldn’t have access to power plant security footage,” Gary surmised.
Jim shot him a look that said you’re not helping.
"It could be a power company," Pops suggested. "They've got power and probably copiers too. They could have obtained that camera footage. Maybe this is their way of sending a message that interference with power plants won’t be tolerated."
"The whole part about the reward and showing up in a chopper to collect their prisoner makes me think it is some wing of the government," Jim said. "Besides, it’s the government running the power plants now so I doubt there’s a private corporate entity known as the power company anymore. I bet every power company employee is a government employee right now."
“That prisoner you refer to so calmly is you, Jim Powell,” Ellen snapped. “It’s you they want hauled onto the football field to be taken away in a chopper. We can’t let that happen.”
"You mentioned Scott and his people," Gary said. "If we can get them on the radio, they might be able to ask around and see if they can find out where this came from. It wouldn’t hurt to ask."
"That's a good idea," Jim said. "It'll take Hugh a good hour to get down here. He’ll probably be late for the meeting, but when he arrives, we can turn him loose on that. They left him with some radio frequencies he could use to reach them."
"What do we do in the meantime?" Ellen asked. “We can’t just sit here waiting for people to come after you.”
"We watch our backs," Jim said. "Keep our guard up. We watch our borders and stay armed."
“Perhaps we should try to reason with the community,” Pops said. “We hold some kind of town hall meeting and you explain your reasoning to them again. We make sure everyone understands that you did this in their best interest. They just can’t see that now.”
“I’d never come back from that meeting,” Jim said. “They’d mob me and fight over who got the reward. I’d probably get killed in the process.”
Gary sighed. “And half the town would die along with you.”
Ellen nodded in agreement. “There’s no way we’d stand by and let them take you.”
“I knew this was going to happen,” Nana said. “I told you it was ridiculous to choose keeping your guns over getting the power back. I’m afraid most of the town is going to feel the same way as me.”
Jim gritted his teeth. Respect your mother and father, he reminded himself. “If that’s the way you feel, you should probably stay inside with Ariel during this meeting I’m about to have. You’re definitely not going to want to hear what I have to say.”
Gary glanced toward the gate coming in from the main road through the valley. "Somebody’s coming now. Judging by that horse I would say it's Mack Bird."
"I need to grab a drink of water before everybody starts rolling in," Jim said. "I'll see you guys in a minute." He headed off toward the house, glad to be done with that conversation.
Ellen rushed off after Jim. Ariel hugged her grandmother tightly.
17
A sizeable group was soon gathered around the fire pit in Jim's backyard. Bird had been the first and Weatherman wasn't far behind him. One of the Wimmer boys was there, though “boy” seemed an ill-fitting term for Mrs. Wimmer's middle-aged son. Fred Wimmer was in his late forties and had always lived on the family farm. He called himself a farmer but held a full-time job with the highway department. He was a stocky man who had maintained his stockiness despite the current conditions. While most folks in the valley were losing weight, the only thing different about Fred Wimmer was that his beard had gotten longer and his clothes a bit grubbier.
Jim assumed Hugh was on the way down the mountain. If he was walking off the mountain, they’d likely be done by the time he got down there, so Jim couldn’t wait for him. Randi and Lloyd showed up at the same time, which was no surprise to anyone. She was often at Lloyd's place anymore but she refused to acknowledge it. If anyone asked, she said she was taking banjo lessons. Jim had dared raise a skeptical eyebrow at her once and she threatened to slap that very eyebrow off his head.
As representatives from the various families showed up, Jim gravely handed the flyer over and watched their reaction as they read it. Nearly everyone within their tribal group had participated to some extent in the action at the power plant. They understood the risks and everyone appeared to agree that it was the right thing to do.
As far as Jim knew, there wasn't a person among them who felt that giving up freedom for electricity was a good idea. It was a classic socialist trap. If you let the government take care of you, they’ll make sure you have everything the person beside you has. The only problem was that the system never worked out.
The end result was always oppression and tyranny. If they surrendered the tools by which they could fight back, then they had no chance. If they handed over their guns and their freedom, the government would take their spirit next. Then there would be nothing left. They would have become soulless vessels at the end of a government feeding tube, completely at the mercy of whoever was changing the bag.
Jim believed death was preferable to that, as bitter a pill as it was to swallow.
As the flyers were going around the circle, the sheriff arrived. Jim was uncertain if he would attend so he was glad to see him. He was one of the few in attendance who’d had no part in the raid on the power plant. Jim wasn't sure how he would feel about the discussion they were about to have but he was a resident of this valley now. He’d expressed his intention to remain there for the immediate future so he needed to be included. Not l
ong after the sheriff arrived, Hugh came riding in bareback on a thin Palomino with a handmade rope bridle.
All eyes turned to him. He was thin and shirtless. His weapons and gear were draped across his bare upper torso like some outlaw reluctantly dragging himself to town. With his long hair and beard he’d have looked at home in an early Clint Eastwood movie.
"Where’d you get that horse?" Jim asked, not recognizing the animal.
"I heard him walking in the woods yesterday. I thought it was a deer or bear at first, but when I tracked it this is what I found. I had some black licorice in my pocket and that’s all it took to win him over. He followed me home."
"We should have set you up with a horse earlier," Jim said. "That’ll really shorten your travel time."
"It’s okay. There wasn’t much point back in the winter. There’s no grazing up there in the woods."
Hugh rode away to tie his new horse off. Jim left the circle and followed him, handing over the flyer.
When Hugh finished reading it he looked back up at his old friend. "You've sure pissed somebody off."
Jim grimaced. “We stirred a hornet’s nest.”
Hugh handed the flyer back over to Jim and they returned to the circle around the fire pit. Before he took a seat, he held the flyer up. "Has everyone had a chance to read this?"
There was a chorus of mumbles, a few scattered curses. Everyone had read it.
"This is bad," Jim said. “Most of you know this story has grown all winter as a rumor. Several of us have run into hostility from townspeople already, basically accusing us of depriving them of power. They think we denied them the opportunity to find relief at the government comfort camps."
"Well, didn’t you?" Fred Wimmer piped in.
"Yes, we did," Jim admitted. "But that was the plan. Those camps are no way for the government to treat its own citizens. Our tax money and our blood built this country. I will not accept being forced to turn in my guns to take advantage of resources we already paid for. This is not the government giving us anything. This is the government distributing supplies that already belong to us."
There were nods of agreement around the circle, though not from everyone. It was evident the glowering Fred Wimmer had more to say about the subject. When Fred first spoke up, Jim felt like he was just voicing the obvious. Yes, the attack on the power plant may well have resulted in the comfort camps not opening, but Jim saw that as a success. Fred Wimmer might not think so.
"Dude, you know they're coming for us, right?" Weatherman said. “If they’re pissed enough to go to all this trouble, to hand out all those flyers, they’re going to want to make an example out of someone. They don’t want this shit happening all over the country.”
“It may already be happening all over,” Mack Bird countered. “We wouldn’t have any way of knowing.”
“There are pockets of resistance,” Hugh said. “I’ve heard radio chatter about it. We may be the first to actually knock a power plant offline though.”
“Good for us,” Weatherman said, a broad grin splitting his face.
"Gary and some of his family were attacked at the market today. That's where we found the flyer. We’re not sure if they were attacked because they were from this valley or whether it was an attempt to steal the horses. Everyone needs to be on high alert."
The sheriff appeared alarmed at the news of the attack. "Was anybody hurt?"
"Not our people," Jim said.
"Not for a lack of trying," Gary spat. "We were out in the open and were lucky not to be killed. In fact, if Jim hadn’t been concerned and followed us into town, they’d probably have killed us all. We would have been boxed in."
"How many of them did you kill?" the sheriff asked, a man waiting for bad news. He was tired of losing residents of his community. He took each death personally.
Jim, Gary, and Debra exchanged glances as if telepathically trying to arrive at a number.
"I don't know," Jim finally said, taking the lead. "I killed at least three but there could have been more. I took a lot of shots at a distance and didn’t wait to see if they dropped."
"I shot two," Debra added. "We were all firing. I saw people fall but I'm not sure how many we actually killed."
The sheriff lowered his face to his hands. He removed his Sheriff’s Department cap and ran his fingers through the hair. "I'm not saying you all did anything wrong, but when things like this happen it makes me look bad. It seems as if I'm taking sides just by virtue of living back here with you."
“Sorry if keeping our family alive makes you look bad,” Debra said. “We’ll remember that next time.”
The sheriff shook his head regretfully at her, as if she weren’t understanding his point.
"If you don't want to be here, you can go. No one is holding you back," Jim said, the statement perhaps coming out harsher than he intended. “Remember, I brought you to live with us because I was trying to avoid bloodshed. I thought if you were living back here with us the bad cops at the supercenter would leave us alone. That problem is solved now so you’re free to move on if you’re not onboard with the way we do things.”
"I don't know what to do," the sheriff said.
Jim was growing impatient with the sheriff’s inability to make a decision, his lack of drive. "I don't know what to tell you," Jim replied. "But there's going to be a point where you have to choose sides."
"I don't know if I can choose sides," the sheriff retorted. “You guys may not be in the wrong but you're not necessarily in the right either. I don't feel like I can side with you and against everyone else out there in the county. That’s what you seem to want and it’s not the kind of decision I'm prepared to make."
Mack Bird, usually a man of few words, spoke up. "If you stay long enough, the decision will be made for you by virtue of your presence here. If you want to be on the other side of the fence, you’d best be getting there."
The sheriff stared at the ground, no closer to making a decision than he had been an hour ago or even a month ago. Fred Wimmer, on the other hand, had been stewing this whole time. He stood up, shouting at the people in the circle.
"I don't think any of you assholes are in the position of telling people who has to go and who can stay. My family was in this valley two hundred years ago. Hell, we were the only people here. We cut this place from the wilderness and made it what it is now. Up until about forty years ago every farm back in here belonged to an uncle or a cousin of ours. If anybody should be making the rules here, it should be us. If it was up to me, I’d tell every one of you to get the hell out of here."
Jim didn't like being yelled at. Everything had been civil up until this moment. He got to his feet and faced Fred. "You sure as hell aren't making rules for me or my family. I respect your parents and I respect what your ancestors did here, but if we’re going to be honest and lay everything out on the table, your family is part of the problem. While there’s no denying that the picture on that flyer is me, nearly all the gossip about folks in this valley attacking the power plant can be traced to your family. It's you all running your mouths that’s got the town stirred up."
Fred's face turned red. He stomped over to Jim and got in his face, yelling so loud, so venomously, that spit flew from his lips. "Hell, I admit it. Don't even blame the rest of my family for it. It was me. I’ve been telling everybody I see about it because it pissed me off that you took it upon yourself to make this decision for the rest of us. How many people in this county are going to suffer because of you?”
“Your parents were informed of this,” Jim reminded him. “Your mother was fine with it.”
“My mother don’t speak for me!” Fred bellowed. “Hell, she don’t even know what year it is.”
Jim stared him in the face. He was disgusted by his greasy skin and the pig eyes that were too close together, his foul breath and reeking body.
Fred leaned closer. “I hope whoever sent that flyer kills every fucking one of you.”
Jim threw a short j
ab and hit Fred Wimmer right on the button. The punch was a quick snap. He didn’t take the time to load it and he didn’t telegraph his plan. He just threw it with all his strength and caught Fred right on the side of his chin.
Fred stiffened and fell like a tree in the forest. No one had seen this turn of events coming, least of all Fred Wimmer. Everyone sat there in shock, Fred’s body seizing in front of them, until Randi jumped up to attend to him.
No one said a word. Then Weatherman started clapping. "He deserved that. He so deserved that."
Around the circle, Jim saw nothing but shocked faces. Then, as much as he didn’t want to, he turned to see the reaction of the one person in the group whose opinion he actually cared about. Ellen was staring at him with an expression of confusion. It was the look you gave someone when you no longer had any idea who they were or who they were becoming. Jim wasn't certain he knew either but he was certain that from this point forward, his enemies would not all be outside the valley. Some of them would be within its hills. He had no idea how the rest of the clannish Wimmers would respond to his attack on one of their own.
Jim was no longer paying attention or listening to what happened in front of him. His adrenaline was up and he was in that place where violence was at the tip of his fingers. Had Jim not been surrounded by people, he had to wonder if he would have killed Fred Wimmer.
Randi, Hugh, and the cackling Weatherman slid the barely conscious man across the back of a horse to deliver him home. Hugh and Weatherman volunteered, heading off in that direction. Then Randi was in front of Jim and she was reaching carefully toward him, explaining what she was going to do. He wasn’t listening. She took his hand and examined it. She tried asking him how certain movements felt but he didn't respond.
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